Israeli hospital cares for Syrian youths injured in civil war

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two Syrian boys wounded during fighting in their country’s civil war were transferred by the Israeli military to a hospital in Safed.

The boys, 9 and 15, were evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces to the Rivka Sieff-Ziv Medical Center late Tuesday night.

One had surgery in Syria for multiple internal injuries, and the other has dozens of shrapnel wounds and lost an eye, according to reports.

The boys join four other Syrian victims of the civil war, including two teens, at Sieff hospital, which has treated 30 injured Syrians in recent months. Earlier in the week, a Syrian civilian being treated at the hospital died of his wounds.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the country’s two-year-long civil war.

Also Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Golan Heights, where he addressed the combat soldiers of the army’s Golani Brigade.

“What’s changed here is that today we are holding a drill in the Golan Heights that is not theoretical. The reality around us is changing and it is explosive, and we must prepare accordingly,” Netanyahu said in an address to the soldiers. “We must have the will to break the enemy and instill within it — at the moment of truth — the fear of death. This is how you win a battle, and if they test us, we will know how to defeat them.”